The Power of Experience

Just a fun picture taken of me at the 2011 Boston MS Patient Advocate Conference.

There will come a time when you will be struck to the core and humbled, be it by something personally or vicariously catastrophic. You may very well be struck more than once. 

When that happens though, the question is, will you learn from it and make lasting changes or will you be persistent in believing that there's nothing that requires change?

I personally believe that when these events occur in our lives we have the power to work the catastrophe and manipulate the final effect.

We decide what direction we go in by how we respond to it and then let that choice define our next steps. It is absolutely easier said than done, but it is possible - I have done it, I am doing it and I am not perfect.

In the fall of 1997, singer-songwriter Paula Cole released a song called "I Don't Want To Wait". This song hit me the second I heard it and it just spoke to me in a very big way - even still, but for different reasons now. 

It's the chorus mostly... in all reality, you could insert any story, sing it with the chorus and have it work. Who doesn't, or hasn't wanted to know the end from the beginning? Especially when you're so uncertain about the future.

The chorus reads:

"I don't want to wait 

for our lives to be over,

I want to know right now, 

what would it be.

I don't want to wait 

for our lives to be over,

will it be yes or... sorry?"

What is your story? What has tried to break you... and instead, made you? It doesn't have to be grand. It only had to impact you, change you in some way; that change alone is grand enough.

I am writing this and reflecting upon several things that have happened over the last few days while visiting family, making new friends, and attending a Multiple Sclerosis patient advocate conference in Boston. 

During my visit I've had some tremendous conversations on just about any topic you can think of. And I've seen time and time again that our character has the strength to take a tough thing and make us better. 

It can make you into something powerful beyond measure; a knowledgeable force to be reckoned with. 

If you get nothing else out of this blog entry, I hope you just know that I feel more peaceful about all that has happened and is currently happening in my life. I feel more peaceful about the direction I am headed. 

I strive to choose my response(s) to life and its varied curve-balls wisely. I still feel urgency and want to know what the end will look like already, in every direction of my life. 

However, if the knowledge I have by the time I get there is remotely sweet like the peace it gives me now... well, it will have been worth the wait, struggle, crying, swearing, and more hard decisions.